Najib: No point building libraries if people don’t care to read

This article caught my eye. For once the DPM made a good point, or rather for once, he managed to point out the obvious. I'm going to get a little political here but I don't get why our politicians point out what we already know. Is it because they just figured it out coz they're a little slower, or because they only know so much and can't seem to dig deeper.

If I put you in office, it is certainly to do more than state the obvious. It is the responsibility of the media to tell me the condition and climate of the country. The politicians are supposed to be doing something about the reported condition of the country. I know we don't need to build libraries coz Malaysians read only two books a year. I know that it is because most books are in English and most Malaysians have such a poor grasp of the language that it takes too much effort to read an English book. I know that it is because teachers themselves suck at English and pass on the suck-iness to their students. What I want to know is why the Education Ministry doesn't do anything about it. What were you doing about the problem when you were Education Minister, Mister DPM? Because those teachers teaching English now went to school while you were in power? (Man, I could get so sued for this.. haha)

Anyway, what I'm really trying to say is that if we don't do anything to stop the cycle, it won't stop. How do we get better English teachers? How do we more effectively teach English to our kids? From an economic stand point, better teachers requires better salaries, from an education standpont, better teachers require better universities. Revamp our TESL syllabus in universities. Bring in foreign experts in TESL. Make our TESL undergraduates read good books in the first place. Raise the bar so people who can't speak English don't graduate with English degrees. So much that could be done, if we spent less time stating the obvious and more time doing what should be obvious.